The invention relates to a wind deflector for vehicles with a sliding or sliding-lifting roof having a wind deflector blade that is connected by way of at least one hinge with a carrier part of a roof installation unit and which may be swivelled around an axis of the hinge, whereby the hinge has a bearing block attached releasably on the carrier part.
In the case of a known wind deflector of this type (U.S. Pat. No. 4,332,416), the bearing block is connected with the carrier part by way of attaching screws which, at the same time, serve for the attachment of the roof installation unit in the vehicle. As a result of the insertion of the sliding roof installation unit, mounting and aligning operations during the insertion into the vehicle are kept small because the installation unit is preassembled and tested for proper functioning prior to installation. It is desirable to also include the wind guard in this functional testing preceding the insertion into the vehicle. Therefore, in the case of the known arrangement, the bearing block is screwed together with the carrier part. This screwing together, however, must be undone in order to enable insertion of the installation unit into the vehicle. This is cumbersome. Moreover, the preliminary alignment of the wind deflector will be lost as a result.
The invention, therefore, is based on the task of creating a wind deflector of the initially mentioned type which, together with the sliding roof installation unit, may be preassembled particularly easily and precisely, thereby permitting a simplified insertion into the vehicle without disturbing the prealignment of the parts during the insertion into the vehicle.
This task is solved in accordance with a preferred embodiment of the invention by providing the carrier part with guides into which guide parts of the bearing block may be pushed and by providing at least one stop for at least temporary fixing of the bearing block relative to the carrier part when it is slipped into the guides.
As a result of the cooperation of the guides and guide parts of the carrier part and the bearing block, a mutual alignment of bearing block and carrier part will be achieved, during the premounting, in a simple and precise manner. As a result of the stop, the bearing block and the carrier part are held in this relative position not only during the premounting of the installation unit and its functional testing, but also during the transportation of the unit and during insertion of the unit into the vehicle. Consequently, in the case of the insertion, it will not be necessary to initially take off attaching screws or other attaching elements. As a rule, no subsequent alignment will be needed either.
The bearing block with its guide parts may effectively be slipped, from the front, into the guides of the carrier part. In order to guarantee a precise spatial, mutual alignment of bearing block and carrier part, that is to say an alignment in all three directions of movement, the guide parts of the bearing block, in accordance with a further aspect of the invention, have lateral guide surfaces running in the direction of sliding in, have at least one stop limiting the sliding in movement and running transversely to the sliding in direction, have at least one bottom surface seated on the carrier part and at least one upper guide surface placing itself, in the slid-in state, below a countersurface of the carrier part.
In the interest of a particularly safe support, upper guide surfaces cooperating with countersurfaces of the carrier part are developed, advantageously, at both sides of the bearing block. The premounting is further facilitated whenever the bearing block is provided with slanting surfaces for the automatic centering thereof with reference to the guides of the carrier part, during the sliding in. The stop may be formed simply by a resiliently deflectable tongue on the carrier part and a stop opening of the bearing block cooperating therewith when the bearing block is slipped in.
Furthermore, the bearing block and the carrier part are preferably always provided with at least one opening or passage which, in the case of a slid in bearing block, are aligned with one another and are intended for the reception of an attaching element, for example, of an attaching screw, during the mounting of the functional unit in the vehicle.